


God Damn Right, You Should Be Scared Of Me

by orphan_account



Category: Internet Personalities, Youtube RPF
Genre: Demonic Possession, Demons, Gen, I have no idea what I'm doing, Now with more Mark, Possession, oh well, should have plugged hydraulic press channel instead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9445169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A rumination on the nature of demonic possession in the 21st century.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend who shattered whatever resolve I had to not write anything for Anti or Jack... This is your fault, Marion. I blame you. 
> 
> Here's my interpretation of Anti and what he might actually be.
> 
> Title's from Control by Halsey, but you knew that already.

It’s rather cold on the other side. Not that I can exactly gauge warm or cold, not without a body to do so, but it’s fairly dark and cold out there. At least there’s plenty in the abyss to sustain me, even if the vast majority of it is pointless junk code. I’m a modern sort of monster, the kind that actually bothers to get with the times; and one of my brighter ideas was moving my place of residence from my old cursed amulet to the abyss of human thought and emotion they call their ‘internet’.

There’s plenty for me to feed on out there in the darkness. Human minds, human souls- they pour their emotions out there into their self-made dreamscape en masse, perfect for me to scoop up and devour. And they do it for free, every second of every minute of every hour of every day. As their little planet spins around its star, hurtling through space on its way to nowhere.

That’s the other thing it’s good for. Education. I’ve learned so much about the world through them, through their words and information and stories and scientific papers. And they just pour it out onto their internet, letting anyone who wants to read it learn what they’ve found.

Perhaps I’m the only demon that’s bothered to learn about the universe he inhabits. Perhaps I am. The ignorance I’ve found among my kind is truly astounding. The red one, the one that follows me around like a lost little lamb; he doesn’t even know why their earth has seasons, let alone how the human brain works. He followed me here, and he’s been following me ever since, copying everything I do. It’s exhausting, to say the least; really cramping my style.

But, I can’t let that dissuade me. Today’s task (not that there’s really a day or night in the abyss) is to find a new host for a splinter of my consciousness. Feeding on the stale thoughts of humans is good for my ethereal wellbeing, but what I really need to sustain me is the fresh fear and terror of the newly possessed.

I sink one of my hooks into one of those inane ads they use to finance their dreamscape, the ones I occasionally shove in the faces of humans who don’t want it. 

Money makes their world go ‘round, after all. 

And I ride along with it, disinterestedly buzzing by a thousand humans all across the globe as I do so. The woman with brown hair in Canada scowls as I appear, unbidden and unwanted- she clicks me away. It’s the same story in England, and then the language changes and I’m being shoved away with distaste in India, and off I go again.

Not my full consciousness, obviously. I’m so much vaster than this tiny little ad could ever be, a being older than their world, older than the stars themselves. And here I am on their wet little rock, feeding on their dreams. Oh how the mighty have fallen, indeed.

And then….

Ireland. I can see the IP address and everything about this user. And something about him makes me pause.

He’s….glowing. Gleaming, brightly, in the darkness. Emotion, pure emotion from outside his body seems to radiate out of this man- adoration. Love. Affection. He’s popular, I realize. He’s a beacon of human thought because he has many humans who look up to him in adoration. I pull away from the ad I rode to his doorstep, settling in behind his screen to watch him. He can’t see me; nobody can. I barely exist, according to their human science. Still, just to be sure I’m not swept away, I anchor this splinter of my being onto his screen in specific, letting myself have the luxury of watching him.

His hair is green. That’s interesting, in and of itself. Not many humans choose to do something like that. It’s fairly prominent, and hard to miss. I do like the colour green. The colour of rotten limbs and envy, of creeping moss and bones tossed around in a creekbed current. But still… why would he do that to himself? My idle wonderings are interrupted by his motion. He’s reaching for something next to his monitor, something I can’t see.

My “heart” leaps when he plugs a pair of headphones into his computer and puts them on, clicking out of his current window and opening another. He types into the bar and the page loads swiftly.

He starts to play some music, bobbing his head slightly in time with the beat. With headphones plugged into his machine. If I had a mouth, I’d be smirking. Too  _ easy! _

He’s oblivious to the danger he’s in, and I take my time, watching him leisurely. He switches tabs, which is fine; he won’t lose me that easily now that I’ve found him, and I can afford to study him a bit closer. After all, I’ll have to wear that skin for a few days; I’d like it to be one that’s in decent shape. He about looks it; a young man in his prime. Perfect for me and my tastes. Old humans are the absolute worst; all aches and pains for no reason, slow and inflexible and falling apart at the seams. And my essence usually leaks out of them, the selfish pricks. Can’t even contain the demon that’s trying to possess them! The nerve of it all.

He opens up a new tab- Youtube, by the look of it. He clicks about, selecting a video and pausing it before scrolling into the comments. Bizarre. No human I’ve seen bothers going down there, besides twelve-year-olds and…this one, apparently.

And he scrolls and scrolls, selecting this comment and that comment, and he smirks and smiles and types replies. I’m baffled. This is bizarre. Youtube is a cesspool even by my standards, and I’m a _ demon _ that thrives on possessing the bodies of living humans.

That’s enough of that nonsense, young man. We’ll soon have you straightened out. I’m doing you a favour here, since obviously, there’s something wrong with you.

I summon something into existence- a popup. A carefully, deviously worded popup. It’s a simple little thing; one of the ones that shake like a shitty scam. But there’s three options, and there’s no right answer.

The rules of engagement state that beings such as myself must obtain the permission of the living before taking their bodies. The rules do not state that the consent must be informed, enthusiastic, or at all fair.

So, young man, would you like me to enter your mind? Yes is yes, No is also yes, and that little red X in the corner is leaving the matter up to me to decide. So, also yes.

He scowls and clicks on the X in the corner.

Well, young man, you’ve gone and made things difficult for me. Now I’ll need to decide if I want to possess you or not. Hmm. I choose yes! Yes, yes I shall.

He keeps bobbing his head in time with the beat, which is fine by me. I stop watching him and direct myself to the data stream that is the song he’s listening to, sinking my claws into it and riding it down the thin black wire connecting his head to his computer terminal. It’s tight and thin and I feel myself being stretched out like spaghetti, for miles and miles; music files aren’t really large enough to get a full splinter of my consciousness into, but it’ll do for now. I’m rather stretched out, but I anchor myself to his tower PC and affix myself there.

Now I can “download” myself into his brain at my leisure. And a machine this nice? Oh, he’ll be back for sure, repeatedly. This shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.

I enter his mind along with the music, since he’s not really listening to it; more running it in the background as his conscious mind focuses on something else. If he was paying attention he’d notice a faint, crackling static in the song; static that shouldn’t be there at all. My static, my interference.

I enter his brain, or at least a tiny fragment of me does. It’s enough.

I quietly curl up in the back of his mind and look out his eyes. I don’t move them around myself- I’m far too weak to do that, there’s simply not enough of me in his mind yet for that to be a possibility- but I am entertained listening to his thoughts swirl about in his head.

He’s a kind boy, I can tell. I like that. It means that the humans who look up to him will be easy pickings for me. I begin to discreetly pore through his memories, rifling through it without his notice- I’m a professional at this, after all, and seizing a body is no trouble for me.

Let’s start with the basics. Who are you, young man?

Your name is Sean. But it’s also Jack.

Hello, Jack. What a nice name. I’ll be taking it for my own shortly, since I don’t have a name like you do. You can keep Sean; I don’t want that one.

So let’s start again then. Hello, Jack. I’m Jack. Pleasure to meet you.

You’re Irish, which I already knew; no tourist drags a PC that expensive with them on holiday, especially not to your country.

You aren’t married with no children. Wonderful, simply wonderful! Hosts with children are so troublesome. They fight so hard to keep me from touching their little ones; hard enough to toss me out of their bodies. And you have a girlfriend, but no spouse. And some friends, plenty of friends. Good, good. Jack, my boy, I think you and I will get along nicely.

And by “get along” I of course mean “I’ll find it easy to subjugate you as I use your body to prey on the fools that look up to you.”

I keep rifling around in his brain, because I am curious. Why WAS he responding to Youtube comments? It’s a curious thing, something I’ve very rarely seen.

In pursuit of my answer, I skip past the childhood things and towards the present. Humans think their memories are stored like a book, in a nice neat folder they can rifle through when they please. I would assure them that that is most definitely not the case at all. Human memory is a chaotic mess, stored in messy traces all around the brain, and it can often take me hours to sort out the memory I actually want.

My host plays another song, so while I’m rifling, I start to download a bit more of my essence into his brain. That’s helpful; many hands makes light work, after all. A bit of my freshly-downloaded essence finds precisely what I’m looking for as I search.

It’s a big blob of memories, related to that website- Youtube. Peculiar.

Let’s see now, Jack, what is your connection with Youtube?

…It’s your…job? How can that be?

That, Jack, is not a job. That’s…I don’t know what the hell it is. But I’m not going to complain. You have humans that look up to you, and I can feed on their minds and souls.

How many humans look up to you, again?

!!!!

Fourteen MILLION!?

Oh, this is too perfect. I wish I had control of your mouth, young man, because I would just love to give a nice little snigger about now. Fourteen million, eh? An idea scratches at my thoughts. I can use you to get to them. I only need to install the tiniest splinter of my essence in all of them, really; download myself into their brains just the same as I did to you. And gorge on fresh thoughts and raw emotions.

Hmm, hmm, now how exactly do I do that?

_ The fuck’s wrong with my headphones? _

That’s not one of my thoughts- it’s one of his. I hear it cut through my static, a remind to me of whose mind this still is. For now.

He’s noticed my static, and that won’t do at all. I’ll have to tweak his thoughts so he can’t hear me anymore.

**Nothing’s wrong with your headphones, Jack.**

_ Nothing’s wrong with my headphones. Right…. _

Good lad. I like you. Your body feels nice and strong, you’ve got fourteen million human souls at your fingertips for me to feast on….now, how do I go about doing that?

I keep watching out of his eyes, my thoughts still popping off ideas. Popups for the lot of them won’t work, since it will inevitably get traced back to my host, and I have a feeling that I’ll be here awhile; his headphone cord is simply too slim for a full, efficient download of my essence into his mind.

It’ll have to be in stages, then. I’ll have to stagger it out over a month at least. But I’m impatient. I want my essence in his brain NOW.

Well, light travels infinitely faster than sound, I suppose. Let’s try through his eyes instead.

I reach out to my main mass, the majority of my essence that is still lurking out there in the depths of the internet, and I reach out and create a Youtube channel for myself. One video, which I’ll just steal from….ah, someone. Doesn’t matter. There we go, it’s all set up. Let’s shove that onto his screen…

I do, shoving it onto his screen with one ‘arm’ none too subtly. With the other, I start needling his brain with curiosity about the magically-appearing video, curiosity and confusion that he himself was already providing. I can’t control his muscles yet, but fragile human emotions are trivial to manipulate.

_ Is this some kind of a glitch? _

He thinks those words and they drift into my thoughts, and I find myself chewing on them. Glitches? Oh, glitches! Glitches, glitches, of COURSE!

Jack, my boy, you are a genius. I think I’m going to enjoy being in your mind.

He clicks on the video- to my delight- and it loads rapidly. He can afford a good internet connection.

The video starts to play, some inane drivel I swiped off some other channel that Jack watches from time to time- some American called Markiplier. Probably some nobody. I don’t care.

_ Did this arsehole steal one of Mark’s videos? Bastard! I should probably tell him people are stealing his shit… _

**You don’t want to tell him, Jack. You just want to watch it.**

_ …I’ll do it after. Later. I gotta…watch it first. _

He blanks out watching the first few seconds, and with the part of me that’s still connected to the internet, I start to tamper with the video, forcing my essence onto the screen and into the stream of pictures.

This manifests as glitches- lots of them. Graphical glitches, tinting the screen green every couple of seconds. Every frame is tainted with my essence, and they hit his eye and enter his brain. He’s gone totally blank, jaw slack, unable to move or do anything but stare blankly at it as I shove myself through the screen forcefully and straight into his mind.

As the video proceeds, I watch with interest- it starts flashing up images of his own face, leering demonically at the camera. Oh, of course. I have a habit of doing that when I force myself into someone’s mind- it tends to distort time a small amount, showing them a snippet of their future. And it’s happening  _ constantly  _ with this video- barely a second of that American fellow is allowed to play interrupted without more of my distortions being forced on the screen.

**You’ll make a wonderful host for me, Jack. I’d like to thank you in advance for all the help you’ll be giving me.**

_ No…problem…. _

**Yes, isn’t it lovely? I haven’t had a good, strong host like you in such a long while…**

Skype is at the bottom of his screen, and it’s starting to pip with messages, all of which he ignores. He can do no different. He’s  _ mine  _ now, and I can feel my influence over his mind growing.

But it’s not enough. The video ends, and to my perennial annoyance, he shakes his head as though to clear the fog- and then takes his headphones off before I can intervene.

_ The fuck was that? I just blanked out for ten minutes… _

_ Ah fuck, someone’s messaging me- oh, it’s Mark. I better tell him someone’s been stealing his- _

Now, now young man, what did I say?

**YOU WILL NOT TELL HIM ANY SUCH THING.**

_ Not gonna tell him. Right. It’s just one, right? Not like they’re mirroring his whole channel. He doesn’t need to know… _

Good lad.

He starts chatting with that American I stole the video from, and a flare of amusement and happiness goes up in his brain. And I can’t help myself. After years of stale thoughts poured onto the internet, this is some emotion that’s fresh, that’s raw and real-

I pounce on it and devour it all, and it’s  _ delicious,  _ so much better than I remember it being. Fresh and tangy. Lemony. Needs a hint of terror to be perfect though.

Instantly Jack’s mood goes flat, and I don’t care at all because I’m stuffed.

_ The fuck just happened to me? Is…is something wrong with me? _

Confusion? Eh, I’ll eat that too. Why not, I’m desperate.

_ I…something’s…wrong…. _

Now he’s all flat and blank. But that’s fine; I’m full. I’ll just let him go about his business then.

Though, I wonder…how much of my essence did I manage to wedge inside his brain thus far?

I spread my tendrils down his nerve endings, looking for purchase somewhere along the way. And to my delight, I find it- the little finger on his right hand.

I wiggle it side-to-side with a feeling of triumph welling in me. Oh, gods yes. Shoving my essence into videos is  _ remarkably  _ effective.

I’ll have to keep that in mind in future.

 

* * *

 

A few days had passed since I’d found my new host, and his brain was most comfortable. He’d just finished recording one of his little videos for his human herd, something with lots of shouting and swearing. Fine by me. I need them to be watching when I shove myself into their minds.

He chats with his ‘editor’, the human whose job it is to cut and rearrange his videos to make them ‘better’. I find the whole process baffling. Humans are just fucking bizarre. If I had a head, I’d be shaking it.

Thankfully, his distraction is the perfect opportunity for me to test my theory. My main mass is still floating out there on the internet, with a large portion of my essence adhered to Youtube in specific; just so I can monitor the goings-on there, the things my host’s herd says and does. And it’s inane drivel, most of it.

Jack clicks away from his conversation, over to his channel; he’s about to post a video.

Thank you, my boy, but it’s time I intervened.

I stick one of my tendrils into the video from the other side of the screen, just a smidgen; just a little tiny bit. Humans aren’t stupid, and they’d notice for sure if I corrupted the entire thing with my essence. And it would be handy for capturing a few thousand souls, at most; I could probably enthrall them completely, just as I’ve done with dear Jack; but my plans are far larger than that.

So just a smidgen it is. And every glitch they hear and see; that’s a scrap of my essence, a piece of  _ me,  _ entering their minds.

Jack clicks the button to post his video, and it’s live. I tap his pinky in celebration; he’s such an accommodating host, helping little old me spread the infection far and wide.

**To celebrate what you’ve just done, how about we go watch one of Mark’s videos, hmm?**

_ Sure…sounds like…a plan…. _

His thoughts have slowed down considerably in reply to whatever I say. It’s like they’re swimming through treacle to get to me. He opens up a new tab, and I let him do it; any one of that man’s videos will suffice for my purposes.

At the same time as I’m subjecting Jack to another barrage on his senses, I feel something extraordinary happening.

It’s a tingling, as though I’m being picked at and pulled away. Tiny fragments of me are being pulled off my main mass- but it doesn’t hurt. Every single one is a seed of something, and every single one is being planted in a human mind. It was ten to start with. Then twenty. Then a hundred. Then, hundreds of thousands. And as the minutes tick by, I feel myself being spread- it’s a wave, a human wave, and I want to roar with triumph. This is fantastic. I can feel them all, feel their thoughts and emotions- and I have to stop myself from feasting. No. Not just yet…

A tiny splinter of me is enough for feeding, and manipulating emotions. Emotions are so easy to toy with, because they’re merely chemical reactions in the brain. And I know precisely which chemicals to alter; the human scientific papers made it abundantly clear which hormones do what.

As I said, the only demon who has a goddamned clue about the universe he inhabits.

I could easily drain them of all their emotion, the masses, but I won’t. Because then they’ll associate Jack with feeling blank and empty, and that’s not what I want at all.

No, I want repeat customers for my poison. So, I give them all a nice hit of dopamine. Let’s make you all feel really really good, hmm? 

As the human drug dealers like to say,  _ the first hit’s free. _

And the second. And the third. And the twelfth. And every hit after that, as many as you please, until I own your souls.

And I will feast on your terror when my plan is complete.

In the darkness of the abyss, I chuckled to myself. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a review if you liked it or if you think I should let Anti eat my brains too!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? Fanon Darkiplier persona? Never heard of it. Incidentally I'm like, still not in this fandom. 
> 
> Also, important fun fact for anyone who didn't know this: you can change your friend's nicknames on skype. So if I was your friend, you could change my name to Assbag and ~*~I'd never knooooow~*~
> 
> This is still your fault, Marion.

It’s morning in October, getting close to their little holiday of Halloween. The house is quiet and calm, my host having woken up not an hour ago, already bumbling around in his shorts and getting ready to start his day.

I’m not really given much choice in watching. The splinter of me that is trapped in his brain is cut off from my main mass, a fragment of me adrift in the sea. I can still feel it, I can still communicate with it and see out of his eyes and hear his thoughts, but it’s not enough to assume direct control. Yet.

Imagine, if you will, attempting to drive a car by remote control from the next hill over, and you’re unfamiliar with the controller, and there’s some lag time between input and action. And also, the car is fighting you the entire time, screaming obscenities and threats into both your ears at top volume and it wants you and your essence and your non-existent family dead.

Possession isn’t as easy as it looks. Don’t try this at home, I’m a professional bodysnatcher.

I watch as he presses the switch on his coffee maker and lifts up his phone to check his messages as it brews. Fine by me, that’s just peachy.

I reach out with my main mass, forcing my essence through the airwaves and into the tiny device in his hand-

And then he closes out of his internet browser and opens skype. To my annoyance. But just as I’m about to **“suggest”** that he start watching some Youtube videos, Jack interrupts me.

_Why’s Mark online? Isn’t it, like….the middle of the night in California?_

Jack’s thoughts drift up to me and I can’t help but be confused as well. That is strange. Some humans keep to schedules about sleeping and waking, and Jack’s memories indicate that this ‘friend’ of his is one of them.

Looking out of his eyes I can see what he sees- and what he sees is a little green circle next to Mark’s icon. Okay. So, he’s online.

Jack taps it in confusion and types out a quick greeting, along the lines of “hey buddy shouldn’t you be asleep” or some similarly casual nonsense. 

Normally I wouldn’t be so interested in this, but something in the depths of my essence is shifting uncomfortably. I have my own issues with my own kind, and this Mark fellow is similarly famous to Jack. So unusual behaviour like staying up later than would be normal for him might just mean….

Then the reply appears and I **SCREECH** in rage, a howl in the confines of his mind that shatters the early-morning calm and reverberates around his brain **.  I’m going to fucking kill** **him. I’m going to fucking consume his fucking** **ⰱⰎⱜⰚⱄ, banish his fucking consciousness to the** **ⰒⰹⰦⱍⰏ, consume his** **ⰅⰦⰒⱐⱏⰁⰢⰣⰶⰧ!!!**

Jack screams in agony, sending his phone tumbling to the floor. He crumples into a heap on the linoleum, clutching at his head through a haze of tears as my roar continues to rattle around inside his brain.

And I don’t care because I am **_beside myself_** _._ Let my host scream and suffer! See if I **fucking** care!

**Bastard! Weasel! Worm!**

**COPYCAT!**

I reach out with my main mass, letting Jack continue writing around on the floor, and viciously stab a splinter of my essence into his phone, into his skype. I’m going to scream at this animal myself. I’m going to rip him a new fucking asshole. How DARE he!?

The words that “Mark” has splashed across the screen of Jack’s phone aren’t English. They aren’t in Korean, or German, or Dutch, or Punjabi, or Quebecois. They’re not written in any script any human being has ever created or been able to read. Demonic script. Demonic script, meant just for me.

And the message is enough to make me want to snuff out your pathetic little star and swallow its energy whole. Of course the full meaning of it is impossible to encapsulate in your measly little language with its paltry lack of nuance; but I’ll do my very best to transcribe it, that you may share my ire:

**Merk: Hey babe, guess what i did?!**

 

* * *

 

_Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic…_

He’s so smart!

This was such an amazing idea. I’m so glad I decided to start following him around- he’s so cool!

He’s so great. The best, really.

He always has the best ideas. Possessing a famous Youtuber?! So brilliant! I’m always amazed by the things he comes up with. I can’t wait to see where this latest scheme of his is going. It’s going to be fantastic, I’m sure of it.

Obviously, I want him to notice I’m there, for once. So I possessed a Youtuber, too! I’m sure he’ll be impressed.

The host body I seized is really great. He’s big and strong and has nice big muscles. If I’m being honest, I really like possessing humans- there’s something about being able to touch the physical world around me that makes me really happy. It reminds me of when the universe was so young, and we were young with it…no decay, no bleed of energy, just an endless bath of scorching hydrogen as far as the nonexistant eye could see. Those were such great times. And when the universe cooled enough, and the first stars formed? That was the best! I remember being able to deflect the first crude clumps of matter, flinging them around the endless gas clouds and giving birth to stars and planets. And the universe was so much smaller, then. So much cozier and safer. I miss those days.

I was mighty, once. So long ago. He was mighty, too…We all were. I used to be able to swallow a star, did you know? Emphasis on used to. It’s…been a long time since then.

Sorry, I’m getting distracted.

I’m not actually using my host’s body to interface with his phone, gods no. It’s impossible to type in our script with a human keyboard; it’s already difficult enough trying to subjugate the human internet enough to make it display our superior language.

In fact, my host is sound asleep, having some silly dream that I can’t wait to mess with. Multitasking isn’t really my strong suit though, and I’m a bit busy talking to him.

I’m anchored on the other side of his computer, and another, smaller piece of me is anchored to his phone; it’s to this screen that I’m gazing, watching the little line of human text that indicates he’s composing his message in reply to mine.

I wait with….well, I don’t really have breath to bate, but I’m waiting with bated breath anyway.

_Jackoff is typing…._

**Jackoff: YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL. I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR** **ⰱⰎⱜⰚⱄ** **OUT OF YOUR** **ⰒⰹⰦⱍⰏ.**

Oh. That….oh. He’s really mad, and I momentarily want to curl up in a hole. But then again, he’s probably afraid I’m going to derail whatever he’s planning, so it makes sense that he’d yell at me. He still likes me, right? Right?

Of course he does. Still, I’ve gone and made him mad.

**Merk: i’m sorry???? Dude you don’t gotta worry, I’m not gonna mess with whatever you’re planning**

His reply pops up instantaneously.

**Jackoff: MY PLANS?! MY _PLANS?!_ FORGET WHATEVER THE HELL I’M PLANNING! YOU COPIED ME, YOU’RE _FOLLOWING ME,_ AND KNOWING YOU, THIS WAS A FORCED POSSESSION, WASN’T IT?! YOU WERE SLOPPY AND VIOLENT, WEREN’T YOU?!**

Erm…Yeah. Man, he’s good. I have no idea how he did that- read me like a book! But yeah, it’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I was kinda sloppy with this one….

**Jackoff: DOES HE KNOW YOU’RE THERE IN HIS MIND?!**

Uh….

**Merk: um**

**Merk: yes**

**Merk: it’s cool though I totally have this under control, I’m keeping him subdued with nightmares and stuff like that**

**Jackoff: YOU FOOL! YOU FOOL! YOU THRICE-DAMNED FOOL! I’M GOING TO ANCHOR YOUR SOUL TO A STAR FOR THIS, YOU SEE IF I DON’T! _HE KNOWS, YOU INCOMPETENT WASTE OF PROTO-PLASMA!_**

And again, he’s got me and I can’t exactly lie to him. I’m a bit embarrassed; how’s he so good at cross-examining me? But just as I’m thinking of what to say in response to that, he decides to drop a bombshell on me.

**Jackoff: HOW DID YOU POSSESS HIM SO QUICKLY?! TELL ME. NOW.**

Oh man oh man oh man he’s asking MEEE HE’S ASKING MEEEEE HOW I DID SOMETHIIIIIING OH MY GOOOOOD

**Merk: Oh man it was super easy. You know those VR headsets, right? If your host plugs themselves into one of those they’re amazingly quick to take over, because it’s like, both eyes, in stereo, and also their ears-**

His response is instantaneous.

**Jackoff: Fine. Let me make this nice and simple for you. You’re going to listen to EVERYTHING I’m about to say and you’re going to follow my instructions TO THE LETTER, am I clear?**

**Merk: 100% clear**

**Jackoff: Good. Whenever your human host is awake, you are to CONVINCE him to play another VR game, do you understand me? CONVINCE. Don’t take his body and start trying to wildly steer it like a puppet on a string. Just toy with his emotions, make him WANT to do it himself. I know you’re too incompetent to try something as simple as memory erasure without causing major damage, so I’ll have to go in there and do it my godsdamned self.**

Oh my gods. OH my gooooods he’s coming, here, tomorrow, and I’m gonna get to watch him do his thing. Right next to me. This is going to be AWESOME!

I’m- I stumble over myself, tweaking the text onscreen and barely managing to contain my excitement. I gotta play it cool, after all. Right?

**Merk: I got it. Don’t worry.**

**Jackoff: The human race can’t know, and you being so blatant with such a famous person…and you’re so godsdamned incompetent, you fool. I know you. You did it sloppily and clumsily and he’s fully aware of what’s going on. I’ll be there tomorrow. Don’t fuck it up. And delete these godsdamned messages, you moron!**

And then he stops typing, our conversation finished.

I scramble to delete the messages. I’m SO excited! He’s barely ever acknowledged me before, and he’s coming over, gonna be in the same skull as me, and I’m gonna get to WATCH-

It’s so great. He’s so cool!

This is gonna be super awesome.

As soon as I’ve cleaned up our little mess over their skype chat, I turn my attention back to my sleeping host.

He didn’t go to sleep peacefully; I basically had to flood his brain with melatonin to get him to pass out. A bit inelegant, but hey, it worked, right?

He’s presently in the middle of a dream, and I shift my focus to the huge splinter of me that’s lodged itself firmly in his brain. Seriously, VR tech is amazing; _one shot_ and suddenly there’s a shitload of me jammed in his brain. More than enough to have some fun with his dreams.

I always have enjoyed playing with the dreams of humans. So much fun; the taste of their fear is addicting, it’s delicious, it’s the best of all their emotions. And by simply playing with a dream or two I’ve got enough of it to last my splinter a week.

I settle in, watching his mind’s eye project his dream onto the walls of his brain. He’s going on a walk through the woods with his **….dog.**

That **fucking** dog. I hate it so much. Whenever I try to assume direct control, it’s there, barking and growling and startling both me and my host and making it impossible for me to get anything done. I’ve been trying to convince my host to put it in a crate, but I’m not as skilled as…he is.

I’ll have to ask when he comes over tomorrow, ask him to tweak my host so he hates his dog. Hopefully he will. Hopefully.

In the meantime, I set about twisting his dreamscape into a lovely little nightmare. Kill the dog, obviously. Skewer it with a spear of rock jutting up from the ground. And the fear bubbles up and I start feasting, and it’s delicious. I keep going, tweaking and twisting his mind and prodding and poking his dream. Until he’s drowning in a sea, a _deep dark endless ocean_ of _blood_ and I’m laughing at his agony. And also stuffing my face with it, because it’s _good._ Lemon candy, potatoes twice-baked with bacon and sour cream, a steak grilled to perfection...fear is such a flavourful emotion, the very best of them all. Happiness is a shade too sweet, anger is bitter and tough, sadness is watery like soup, but fear flows like fucking honey.

As I gorge myself, I wonder idly…what _is_ he planning, anyway?

It’s probably going to be great.

I can’t wait to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did this dumpster fire of a fic develop the beginnings of a plot 
> 
> I already have another 140k fic on the go, I don't need another one in my life.
> 
> Feel free to leave a review if you liked it or think I should be pushed out an airlock!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey look another one of these chapters. Wouldja look at that shit, eh? Yeah, I didn't abandon this fic, don't worry. I've just been really busy with university and the like. 
> 
> Also, I drew Anti!  
> Here's a shitty drawing of the Anti in this fic. Dark is also like this, but he's red instead of green. And they're both a lot more....ethereal. Like smoke from a campfire, or something.
> 
> I wrote most of this on a plane while seriously exhausted so y'know, you've been warned.

If I had lungs, I’d sigh.

That was a complete fiasco, and I found myself growing more and more agitated. Jack was still crumpled on the floor of his kitchen, clutching his head in both his hands as his eyes swam with tears of pain. Whoops. I might have overdone it a bit.

I watch as he rose slowly off the floor, wiping the tears out of his eyes with the back of one hand while still clutching his forehead with the other. That had really smarted- hopefully I hadn’t caused him any actual damage, and this headache would prove temporary at best.

_What the fuck was that?!_

Jack’s thoughts were no longer swimming through treacle, much to my annoyance. That jolt had been enough to snap him out of the carefully-constructed haze I’d swaddled his mind in, and now I was going to have to start all over from the top.  With that said, I was still in his mind, so I could opt to make like that idiot and speak to him. Unlike that idiot, however, I have the finesse to tamper with his memories, and it would therefore be trivial for me to blur them enough so that he doesn’t think himself insane for talking to the little voice in his head, or indeed, say anything about the little voice in his head to anyone.

This was a stupid idea, but I needed to re-establish control over him as soon as possible.

**Sorry about that. Are you alright? You’re not hurt, are you?**

The apology is legitimately heartfelt; I have no desire to harm my future body.

_WHO THE FUCK-_

Ah, now see, that won’t do at all. Calm down, young man, it’s all in your head. I can’t hurt you. Yet.

I tamper with a few chemicals, tweaking the panic and fear hormones to lessen their concentrations and adding a little shot of dopamine in there- just enough to start calming him down. His heartbeat spiked after all this nonsense with my counterpart- gods, I’m getting so sick of that little twerp- and I feel a certain duty of care towards him. It wouldn’t do for him to have a heart attack, especially since neither of us knows if he has a predisposition towards it. Then I’d be down a host body and back to square one.

Jack hoists himself into a sitting position and struggles to get his breathing back under his control, a process I assist with by helpfully messing with his hormone levels. His breathing slowly starts to even out, only occasionally punctuated by the odd shaky huff. For the most part, though, he’s finally managed to regain his composure (with my help!) even if we are sitting on the kitchen tile at 8:00 AM in boxer shorts and nothing else.

_What the fuck is happening to me!?_

**Nothing is happening to you. Calm down.**

I “smudge” his thoughts a bit, as much as I can do under the circumstances. He lifts his head in alarm, looking around the room as if to ferret out the source of the voice speaking to him. That’s not going to happen, since he’s obviously alone in the room.

_Who- what-_

**Don’t concern yourself with who. Who I am doesn’t matter.**

_Why are you in my head?!_

I chuckle to myself a bit. Nickel for every time I’ve been asked THAT question, eh?

**I’m in your head because I have great things planned for us both, Jack. Great, incredible things. Quiet your fears and trust me, because I’m going to help you in ways you could scarcely imagine. Finish your coffee.**

He does, obediently, and we both turn our attention back to his phone.

He starts disinterestedly scrolling through headlines while sipping on his coffee, as though nothing had happened and he was just waiting for the toaster to pop up.

A little flag descended from the top of the screen, a notification from Skype- just the program I’d been hoping to see. And the message? 

**Merk:** **ⰔⰪⰟⱗ** **ⰼⰛⰂⰗ** **ⱃⱚⱌⰼ**

It’s time.

With my main mass, I reach out and stab a shard of my consciousness into his phone, reaching out into the void-

It’s impossible to really describe the sensation of physically contacting another of my kind. Not really, at least. It’s…a bit like falling into a deep dark ocean full of stars and slowly sinking to the bottom of it, as they all burst into supernovas around you. That only lasts for a fraction of a second, of course, which is still much too long for my tastes. Then, of course, there’s the fact that your thoughts start getting faintly jumbled with theirs and…on the whole, it’s just a mess. Especially when the thoughts and emotions creeping into your mind are courtesy of someone who you can’t stand.

**Follow me.**

No shit. I’m going to clean up HIS mess, after all, and here he is talking to me like I don’t know what I’m doing. The _nerve_ of this insolent little pup.

I feel one of his tendrils wrap around one of mine, the indescribable sensation of consciousness touching consciousness. His thoughts are swirling around in mine, and just for a moment, I fear- well, I fear that he might try to make the contact permanent. The fear is fleeting; but it’s there nonetheless. To become a _gestalt entity-_

No. He wouldn’t…he wouldn’t dare.

He’s excited, for some reason; I can’t fucking fathom why. I can sense his emotions, or perhaps taste would be a better word. Taste his emotions, reach out and touch at his thoughts and feel the rough outlines of their form. The shape of them is…he’s one of my kind, of course. Our thoughts are not ordered like yours.

He leads me through the blackness, tugging me along the thin umbilical to a different place altogether. The phone he’s using to speak to me is in close proximity to a computer terminal; his host’s personal terminal, by the look of things. 

It’s a nice rig, all things considered; almost as good as my host’s computer. These humans we’ve found, they’re certainly not hard up for money.

**I did as you asked.**

Another thought, calm and measured; a veneer over his own giddy excitement. He’s practically ecstatic, and again I’m at a loss as to why. I’m probably going to lose my damn mind once I’m in this human’s head, and he’s going to get a stern reprimand. And if I can, I’m going to find some way to get this fucking idiot to stop following me.

I didn’t ask to babysit a fool, but here I am, an immortal monstrosity from beyond the reach of the furthest stars, putting my own machinations on hold to clean up the mess some half-wit left behind.

A thick black cable is plugged into the terminal- a wire, fat and plump with copper conduits. It channels a splinter of my essence, sweeping me up in a current of data that is already streaming through the wire and into a VR headset. Just as I asked.

The eyes on the other side of the stereoscopic cameras are brown, and as I force my way through them, the human…I’m all he can see. The virtual world he’s immersed himself in, I’m corrupting it. ALL of it. Every last pixel he can see in any direction, tainted by the purest form of my essence. His screen flickers green and black, monstrous visions of possible futures leaping out at him through the static. Himself and Jack, rendered in green; human animals lunging at him like predators through the haze of corrupted snow. That fool was right about this VR stuff, I’ll give him that. I’ll have to see to it that Jack plays a few of these VR games himself.

Just like that, I’m in this human’s mind; a huge splinter of me, no mess and no fuss, with more streaming in all the time. I look out his eyes, and oh. Oh, my Gods.

I’m…everywhere.

The VR headset is….it’s a prison. The entire virtual world is corrupted by my essence, and it’s no wonder the human’s jaw has gone slack. He can do nothing more than let it stream into his mind. Gods, this is the easiest thing in the entire world. I need to convince Jack to do this as soon as I’m finished here.

The human… Mark, wasn’t it? My host gave me his name, but what with how stupid humans can be, you always have to double-check the facts before making a call for sure. I start pawing around in his brain, rummaging through his thoughts as more and more of my essence streams into the human’s mind through his dark brown eyes.

Yes, it was Mark. From what I can see, he’s cut from a similar cloth to Jack. He also makes his money by screaming at video games in front of a camera, and then posting the resulting footage to the internet. What an incredible contribution to human progress these two are making. And this one, he was apparently studying to be an engineer at one point! Gods, these humans are stupid and self-serving.

Which would explain their friendship; humans of similar interests do love to congregate in little cliques. That examination done, I turn my attention to his more recent memories-

And slam headlong into that fucking fool. Well, “slam”; we’re not exactly solid, but he’s occupying space that I need to occupy to find the information I’m after. The human brain wasn’t really designed with room for three, is my point. And of course that means I end up brushing against him and being swamped with another wave of his emotions and the vague outline of his thoughts, and well.

His thoughts are a swirl of joy and excitement, and frankly, it’s pissing me off.

**Get the fuck out of my way, you fool.**

**Sure thing, Anti.**

He replied to me, the calm demeanour finally cracking at the seams, his exuberance bursting through. But that wasn’t what made me stop dead in my tracks.

**_WHAT did you just call me?_ **

He shifted a bit, emotions swirling around, the flavour of his feelings changing from excitement to mild embarrassment.

**I, uh, I called you…Anti?**

**You… _Named me?_**

**No! I didn’t- I mean- It’s not my Name for you! I didn’t- I didn’t Name you! They- the humans! Your host, Jack- he- his humans- THEY named you!**

And instantly I stop everything I’m doing to just….chew on those words.

They named me.

They NAMED me.

They named me, the shapeless horror lurking in the darkness. The stupid, foolish humans gave me a name…

I reach out to the splinters of myself lodged in those two million minds, seeking out the truth. If anyone would know, it would be them.

I whispered the Name to my shards of consciousness, and they sang back to me softly.

Yes. That was the name these humans had chosen to give me. They’d seen my glitches in the latest video, and in their excitement, had written it off as an event Jack was putting on for Halloween. They thought I was…a character, of Jack’s own creation, one without a name.

So they’d given me one. Anti. As in, Anti-Jacksepticeye. Antisepticeye.

What a fucking _appallingly **STUPID** _ name.

**And how, pray tell, do YOU know this?**

**Well, I…uh…look, Mark is kinda fond of making slightly fucked-up videos. And so I went digging on that website…tumblr? Look, I got curious as to what the humans were saying about our hosts, okay? And, like…look, they saw what you’ve been doing lately to Jack’s videos, and they noticed something was up. You should be happy! They NAMED you! Do you have any idea how big a deal that is? That lets us, like-**

Oh how I _wish_ I had control over Jack’s body so I could facepalm.

**Yes. I know. “ _We grow stronger when they speak our names.”_ Amazingly, I’m just as old as you are, and as it happens, I _might_ be a _little_ more experienced in these matters than you. **

The words are dripping with sarcasm and seething with barely-contained hate. How has he not picked up on the fact that I can’t stand him yet?

**You don’t gotta get snippy. I’m just saying. Oh, they named me, too! I’m so excited! They gave me a NAME!**

Oh gods this is going to be a pile of cringe isn’t it

**They call me Dark! As in Darkiplier! Isn’t that awesome!?**

The cringe is so painful it burns. That is the worst, most awful name for a demon I’ve _ever_ heard. Fucking Dark. DARK. By the grace of the god-mother Shub-Niggurath, who among the humans thought that this was an _appropriate name for one of our kind!?_

If I ever regain even a fraction of a fraction of the power I once held, I am going to swallow your star for this. I am going to swallow the light of your star and let your planet freeze in the fucking dark, mark my words. Your species will live to regret this travesty.

**Yes. Awesome. Awesome, as in the biblical sense of the word, in that I stand in awe of the slack-jawed apes who opted to come up with these pitiful excuses for names. And why in the seven hells did they name YOU? You haven’t even done anything to make yourself noticed by them, and here you are parading around your stupid, _stupid_ name like it’s some kind of a badge of honour!**

There we go. Now he’s feeling something other than dopey delight and excitement. Now I’ve gone and upset him. Good. Excellent. Hopefully I can keep aggravating this pest so he LEAVES ME ALONE.

I huff. I didn’t ask for a name so objectively _stupid_ as Anti, but I suppose I’m stuck with it. Just as I’m about to turn my attention back to the task at fucking hand, though, he… _Dark_ …finally works up the courage to reply.

**I have a name because my host- Mark- he enjoys making videos that are…scary. Creepy. Weird. Not all the time, just sometimes. He enjoys it…more than he rightly should. Have a look for yourself if you don’t believe me. But because of that, there already was a name out there for…my host at his strangest and scariest. He’s Darkiplier. And I guess, seeing what you were doing- there were pictures, speculating about me-**

The explanation is a waterfall, a cavalcade of cringe and stupidity and just…just…humans. Humans and this fucking moron. He’s more human than a human, I swear to all the gods on heaven or earth below. It makes sense that he’d think that the name they’d given him was…Dark…but, well. I was still a little on edge. This would bear further investigation at a later time, when I was finished messing around with my duties here.

**Whatever you fucking say, idio- Dark.**

Ugh. That name. I’m going to fucking choke on it every time I use it from now on. Ugh. He needs a better name, or a less stupid human herd to follow his host. Then again, so do I. Fucking _Antisepticeye._ Gods fucking damn it.

I turn my attention back to the task at hand, not wanting to waste any more time. There wasn’t much to this; honestly, all that time…Dark…and I had spent bickering gave me more time to download yet more of myself into Mark’s brain. And I would be leaving a little piece of me behind when I left, of course.

No sense in wasting the potential for another nice, strong host, right? Especially if the demon currently occupying it was an idiot.

I swiftly find the memories I’m looking for, making quick work of them- carefully blurring them away and making them appear like bad dreams to Mark, should he try to recall them. Deleting memories isn’t so simple; I’d need to be in full control of the brain in order to do that, and since I happen to be sharing it at the moment, that’s essentially impossible. Memory is stored in material traces in the brain, after all, and deleting those traces from existence is essentially impossible. Far easier, then, to simply fudge the memories, make them ethereal and make the human in question doubt they were anything more than a bad dream.

My work is almost surgical in its precision. I am a master of my craft, and…Dark…knows it well. I can taste his amazement, watching me work my magic. Human brains are so easy to manipulate once you understand how they work, and fortunately there’s a wealth of knowledge on the internet dedicated specifically to the task of explaining how the human brain works.

And soon, Mark’s mind has been wiped clean of all those terrifying, troublesome memories of my idiot counterpart forcing his way in and taking the human’s mind by force. The terrifying memories of having his hands suddenly lock up, no longer under his control, a voice in his head bellowing orders and making him cower in fright and terror; I tidy it all up and sweep it all under the rug. Every nasty memory from the last few weeks, blurred tidily away into some innocuous little nightmares that will wake him in the middle of the night, screaming and drenched in cold sweat, for years to come.

I’m good at my job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author wishes it to be known that the opinions expressed by Anti in this fic with regards to the fandom at large are entirely his own.


End file.
